Languages and Art

I shot the Language Department for the 1965 Girardot. The teachers are Dan Moore, Spanish; Charlotte Malahy, Latin; Susan May and Mary Sivia, French. (Click on the photos to make them larger.)

With the demographic shifts we’re seeing, it’s interesting that Central had two French teachers, but only one Spanish teacher. I guess French might have helped me communicate with the Haitian Creole speakers who have migrated to Florida and some of the Louisiana backwoods Cajuns I ran across covering hurricanes, but parts of South Florida speak more Spanish than English.

Other language stories

Senior Moore and Spanish class

Miss Krueger’s retirement party and other CHS teachers who were there when Dad was in school.

Edna Glenn, Art instructor

I managed to dodge art class until I got to Ohio University. All photo majors had to take Art 101. Here’s an account of the experience.

I knew I was in trouble from the first day when the instructor said we were to fill a sketchbook with renderings of common objects we encountered  every day.

The first problem was that we weren’t on the same page when it came to defining “rendering.” He was thinking, “picture: show in, or as in, a picture; “This scene depicts country life”; ‘the face of the child is rendered with much tenderness in this painting’.”

My work came closer to “melt (fat or lard) in order to separate out impurities; ‘render the yak butter’; ‘render fat in a casserole.’”

There WERE some Central High School students who did Mrs. Glenn proud.

13 Replies to “Languages and Art”

  1. We were fortunate to have had these choices. Foreign language teachers are difficult to find today. In Missouri they are considered a critical shortage.
    Mrs. Sivia was a wonderful teacher and had a lot to do with my becoming a teacher, French , of course. We had many great teachers. It is hard to find teachers of their caliber today.

  2. Well Spanish, who could you speak Spanish to around Cape in the 60’s….only other Spanish students in Cape, thats who. So of course I took Spanish with El Senior Moore and Don Sandin, nacy Linebarger, Jackie Ebaugh for two years or Dos Anos for you lingo experts. Little did I know when traveling around the world that English was the language of choice and my Spanish floundered for years. UNTIL I moved to Chicago in the early 1980’s where my Central High School Spanish enabled me to eat an ANY Greek or Chinese restaurant and order in the native restaurant language of Spanish!
    We were very lucky to have such great teachers at Central and people still say I have a great and cultured accent in Spanish, all thanks to the hours spent repeating all the tapes in the language lab and good a teacher, Mr. Moore.

  3. I took two years of Spanish with Senior Moore and two more years in College. Unfortunately, Senior Moore didn’t have much to work with when it came to my Spanish learning skills. He was a good teacher and very patient!
    Mrs Silva was my homeroom teacher one year. She was a very nice lady.

  4. Both Mrs.Glenn and Mdme Sivia were also very elegant and calm women in addition to being fine teachers. Loved the afternoon socials at Mrs. Glenn’s lovely apartment. Thanks for the memories Ken.

  5. Senor Moore always said that someday Spanish would be much more prevalent than we would ever believe – was he right! I initially took it at Central because two of my sisters had taken it. I ended up enjoying it very much, took six years of it altogether. Now I hear it spoken constantly here in Florida, but don’t understand very much, too fast, but it’s fun to pick up a few words!

  6. I had classes with both Ms. Sivia and Ms. Glenn. I enjoyed them both. My smattering of French has proven invaluable only rarely when I can translate one or two words in a movie. Ms. Glenn got me hooked on art-an addiction I’ve never gotten over. If memory serves me, She was once a “Miss America”. Both were wonderful examples for their students.

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